


Guilty by Association

by imdex



Series: You Know the Rules [10]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Altmer - Freeform, Childhood Memories, Desperation, Elenwen is a dick, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fighting, First Meetings, Forgiveness, Freedom, Guilty by Association, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Innocent, Kidnapping, Love, Memories, Mental Anguish, Murder, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Prisoner of War, Repressed Memories, Sadness, Thalmor, Torture, Triggers, True Love, Unrequited Love, War, body harm, breton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 07:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7967224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imdex/pseuds/imdex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Breton brought in was just another face, another human, another nobody to him. <br/>Rulindil soon learns that she <i>is</i> somebody...<br/>...and is confronted by emotions he never expected with one simple word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilty by Association

**Author's Note:**

> Not part of their story line...at least I don't think so.   
> I found this in the massive heaps of stories I've started and abandoned. TheMulletWhisperer and SoftlyTea implored that I finish it and so I did :D 
> 
> #feelssoaccomplished  
> #ohmygoodnessIjusthashtagged  
> ...I'm sorry. 
> 
> Rulindil, as always, belongs to Bethesda.   
> Imani and Adsila are mine.

There were three things Imani always made sure of when visiting Rulindil at the Embassy. A regime that he'd grown plenty accustomed to in the passing months and as much as the loathed one of them the other two had become apart of his own routine. 

The first thing the Breton would do was the very eager task of showing him how much she had missed him in the absence between their rendezvous. 

The second thing was the…entertainment that awaited him in the morning. Imani was a master at hogtying Altmer, she'd given him a taste of what the hapless guards endured when they had the misfortune of simply existing. Rulindil forgot how strong the little human was, her stealth was otherworldly, which allowed her to easily take care of the third task. 

Emptying his "play pen". 

Rulindil had just ascended the staircase, had just crossed through the threshold into the upper part of the embassy, when he was attacked. Her attack wasn't the normal sort. There was no tiny squeal accompanied by her jumping on his back, no running leap into his arms with a smile and a kiss, no greeting him on his desk with nothing on. 

The interrogator slammed into the wardrobe at the bottom of the stairs and black sprinkled his vison. His head throbbed with the force of her hit and holding his face tenderly he turned to address her. Imani, with strength the mer always seemed to forgot she was housing, gripped his robes at his throat and shoved him backward. 

'What is th-'

'Why is she here?!'

Rulindil felt his blood run cold and for the first time ever since the Breton stumbled into his life felt fear towards her. Her eyes were bright green, narrowed sharply, and wet with tears. Her entire body shook violently with adrenaline and he could faintly hear her teeth grinding together. 

'Release me. Now.'

Imani snarled and her hand shot up to curl around his throat in a very clear warning. She wasn't playing. 

'Bre-'

'WHY IS SHE IN THERE?!' 

A violent shake sent his throbbing head into further turmoil as the Altmer tried to figure out whom the distraught and furious Breton was referring to. 

'..t-that Breton in the middle cell?'

Her grip tightened and Rulindil took that as a yes reply. 

'She was brought in under suspicion of aiding an enemy of the Dominion.'

Imani, his sweet, kind, happy, endearing, charming, lovable, and playful little Imani stared back at him with a look of pure hatred. Rulindil bristled and shook the Breton off and for the first time called up his magic and prepared to use it to harm her if need be. 

'…go. Let. Her. GO.'

'Imani have you lost your mind?!'

Sensitive as she ever was Rulindil could clearly read her like a wonderful little book. The current chapter was desperate with undeniable and unfathomable rage and he knew that she would surely be out for blood if he did not comply. 

The elf shoved himself into the mindset he should have held all along and glared at her hatefully. Right now he wasn't facing his lover. 

He was facing a human that looked ready to kill him if he breathed wrong. 

'Have you lost your mind finally, Breton?'

Imani growled and her eyes already wild with frenzy narrowed minutely with pain. 

'You will explain yourself. Now.'

'Have you touched her?'

Rulindil sneered at her. Who was this woman that Imani cared for so much that she'd willingly fight him to the death over?

'Not yet. But I shall.'

The first part of his reply pacified her before her body shook violently with a new surge of adrenaline. She looked close to being sick, ripping him apart, and crying at the same time and though he was mad and extremely confused he still wanted to hold her tight and make this go away. 

Imani licked her lips and reined in her breathing enough to check her voice back down to a heavy heavy whisper. Pleading desperation won supremacy in her eyes as she met his hostile gaze. 

'You have to let her go.'

'I will do no such thing.'

Imani tensed painfully and a slight feeling of dread clutched at his stomach. 

'She is an enemy of the Dominion. Whatever she's done is punishable by being here. I don't care who this woman is to you, Breton-'

The Breton cut him off with a sob. The anguish and the torment held in that single little sound sent a wave of dire unease through him to a nearly painful point. Something was very wrong. 

The look that crossed her face, her normally cheerful and sweet face, was one of absolute suffering. One he'd seen on plenty of his prisoners as they pleaded with him to let them live. Rulindil felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. 

'Imani-'

'Rulindil, t-that's my mama…please…she's…'

It felt as if he'd been tossed into the Sea of Ghosts.

He recalled immediately and with chilling clarification the look on Elenwen's face as the woman, Adsila he now remembered with embarrassment, was brought in. It was as if the Ambassador had won some sort of war…

and he was just the pawn to play his role in brining in the prize. 

The magic in his palms faded and his head felt light with animadversion and for a spit second the mer felt as if he'd pass out. He hadn't paid any attention to the Breton as the guards shoved her into the cell, he hadn't taken the time to really read over her report, and shamefully her name hadn't stuck out in bold red contrast in his mind like it should have. 

'I…I'm-'

Imani had long buried her face in her palms and sobbed against them in torment. He imagined he'd do the same if he'd been in her spot; pleading for the life of a person that you loved with your whole heart. The person that had done so much for you, that had always been there, that would always remain no matter the time or distance between. 

Rulindil would cry like this for _her_. 

'E-Emiss…'

The Altmer recoiled in disgust. She was so defeated that she was willing to address him by title sincerely in attempt to appease him. One that he found offensive and a filthy mark on his life at the current moment. Unthinking, Rulindil pulled her against him and fell to his knees with her as hers gave out. 

'Imani…I'm sorry.'

From against his chest her cries rose and chipped away at his heart with the agony. Slowly his fingers traced gingerly against her armor, leather warmed by her body heat and smooth beneath his calloused finger tips, and the mer felt his own tears of shame prick unannounced at his eyes.

Auri-el help him he was such a fool. 

The elf felt his heart clench harder and harder with each pathetically desperate plea that came from his Breton until it wasn't just her voice any longer. 

It was the voice of _hundreds_. 

It was the cry of _thousands_. 

It was the limitless pleas and the hollow screams of the ones that had passed before him before. The Nords that were faithful to the end. The Imperials that aided criminals. The Bosmer that turned their backs on the alignments set by the Dominion. The Dunmer and the Argonian slaves brought in for target practice back in the isles. 

A flash of dark amber eyes roused the back of his mind. 

His own brother looking at him from his chains as he explained to his little brother what he'd done. His crime had been the very crime Rulindil swore he'd never commit, the one that he was currently clutching to for dear life as he tried to navigate his way back from the memories her confession had opened the cage door to. 

From Faervel his mind brought up another one, one that brought a twisted feeling of shame through his chest.

Imani. 

The Breton that was crying against him and still holding him tightly despite the mistake he would have blindly made. The little human that had swayed him into this warmth and joy he never knew existed. The only person that he loved and adored, that had always been there for him, that had been so patient with him. 

…her mother was caged in his domain. Her mother would have died by his hand. Her mother would have been another passing face. Another nobody. Just another human to fall before him, to look at him with sadness, anger, pity. He wondered sickly _how_ Adsila would have looked at him in her last fleeting seconds before she bled out. 

'I'm sorry… Breton, I'm sorry.'

The words were rushed and chanted against her inky hair as the mer clung to her and hoped and prayed that she'd feel his remorse as well as hear it. The mer felt his whole world crumbling down to his knees, shards of hatred and apathy he'd done so well keeping held together still with the smallest bit of epoxy, being the pride he still clung to when she was away. 

'Imani, I am so sorry.'

'Please, Rulindil, do with me what you will…just please let my mom go. She's innocent…she is I swear…'

'Forgive me.'

She sniffled against him and cried once more at the heaviness in his words. He wanted repentance from not just this…but for everything. Every single occurance, every person he'd killed, every crimson stain that soaked and rotted at his name. Rulindil sought her comfort then, he searched for the devotion that he questioned she had at the current moment, and with a teary glance up Imani cleansed him of his shame and filth for a moment.

'…always, Dragon, I always will.'

Tears of his own burned at his eyes as he pulled her still closer and bent to kiss her temple. 

'I'll release her, I swear to you, dearest love.'

 

\----

 

Adsila looked up from her current place against the corner of her cell with tired eyes. Rulindil lingered at the door and simply stared with a look the Breton couldn't quite place and silently she watched him cautiously. 

'…stand up.'

With a wince the woman stood but made no move to travel from the corner until told. Rulindil felt his heart leap up in his throat as the mer scrutinized her with eyes that she hadn't expected to be so…soft. 

'Adsila.'

She blinked and for a second she looked fearful. 

'…Master Rulindil?'

The door to her cell swung open and the Breton stood stonily. 

'You are free to go.'

The woman frowned and bristled, clearly thinking this a trap, and stayed put. 

'…I'm free?'

'Yes.'

'Why? I was under the impression that I've been aiding some sort of criminal? You've not questioned me-'

'I have not need to question you, ma'am. You are not guilty of any crimes, it was a misunderstanding, you'll find someone to aid you on your trip home through that hatch.'

Adsila looked at the blood soaked hatch on the floor. 

'Emissary…if this is some sort of ploy I have a request.'

Rulindil frowned at her. 

Her eyes flitted back up and focused squarely on him and he'd seen that look before. On Imani, her daughter, her beautiful daughter, the night the Imperial had assaulted her. Defeat. 

'…my daughter lives in Skyrim now, through no fault of her own. If you ever capture her..'

A look of anger sparked through burnet eyes at the thought but quickly the emotion was pulled back in. 

'…please. Tell her that I loved her.'

The Altmer stepped into the cage then and towered over the little woman, shorter than Imani by an inch or so, beautiful and marvelous with the slight signs of age and wisdom cutting hints of wrinkles across her skin. The Breton maintained their eye contact bravely, only breaking it for a second as she reached out for his hand. 

Fearless. Just like her daughter. 

Rulindil sucked in a breath and his tears threatened him once more as she held his hand in her own small ones and brought it upward between them. 

'…her name, then?'

A flash of worry widened her eyes as she realized whom she was speaking her only daughter's name to. 

'Her name is Imani.'

A smile then crossed his lips, lighting his haunted features up with a light the woman hadn't expected at the very mention of the name. 

'She loves you too, Adsila.'

'I…y-you know her?'

For a second the elf was silent and once more his presence alone brought up the beginnings of intimidation within her heart. But then the monster she'd always heard such awful stories about squeezed her hands gently within his large ones and the smile that pulled at his lips brought a flutter to her heart. 

'…know her? Madam, I _adore_ her.'


End file.
